


Situations Vacant

by Janice_Lester



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-08
Updated: 2010-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-26 20:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester/pseuds/Janice_Lester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk fills in as personnel officer, and brings his own unique (awesome!) approach to attracting new crew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Situations Vacant

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [](http://ellethill.livejournal.com/profile)[ellethill](http://ellethill.livejournal.com/).

 

 

>   
> **OPERATIONS/SECURITY**
> 
>   
>  Do your current duties lack excitement? Are you sick of always protecting boring diplomatic types who’re never in any danger anyway because no one gives a cr@p about killing them? You want real risk, real reward? Is red totally your colour? Starfleet’s flagship needs bright, eager, capable, fit, awesome security personnel for regular nightmarish missions on strange new worlds. Expect the unexpected. You might be attacked by mist monsters, have to take down two-hundred-year-old reanimated corpses who’ve taken over the ship, or get in a firefight with actual dragons. Trust me, it all happens out here, and we want YOU to be in the thick of it. Some security experience is preferred, but common sense is the main thing—if you don’t have it, you won’t last long in this job. Send CVs to Cpt. Kirk,  Enterprise, packets to be marked with sorting code NEWREDSHIRTS.

>   
> **ENGINEERING**
> 
> The Enterprise requires an Assistant Chief Engineer for the main duty shift. Must be able to reassemble a warp core without an instruction manual, coax warp nine out of engines rated only to warp eight, think on your feet, be flexible where things are alleged to be impossible, keep your head in a crisis, hot-wire antique automobiles, understand over-excited Scotsmen, and hold your liquor. Respect for the chain of command a bonus. Applications to Cpt. Kirk, Enterprise, using sorting code SAVEKEENSER’SSANITY.  
> 

>   
> **MAINTENANCE — CLEANING**
> 
> Know how to get ghostly blood stains out of standard issue carpet tiles, weird purple alien blood out of gold command tunics? We need you! Send CV. Cpt. Kirk, Enterprise, sorting code HIGHATTRITIONRATEIWONDERWHY.  
> 

“What’s all this?”

Jim looked up from his nest of blankets and padds on the floor at the familiar, comforting grumble. “You know we need nearly _fifty_ new people this month? I’m writing the ads for the Fleet’s Situations Vacant board.”

Bones glowered, paused in the process of toeing off his boots. “Don’t we have a personnel officer for that?”

Jim sighed and flexed his typing fingers. “Killed at Vulcan. Actually, that’s on my list of posts to fill. In the meantime, Spock’s been doing it.”

“So why are _you_ doing it now, all over the damn floor?”

“Long story.” Jim yawned and leaned back, tipping his head until it rested on the bed behind him and he could gaze at the seriously fucking boring ceiling of the captain’s suite.

“I’d better get a drink, then. You want one?”

“Sure. Thanks, Bones.”

A minute later, Barefoot Bones (who was one of Jim’s favourite Boneses) handed him a tumbler before perching on the edge of the bed by Jim’s shoulder. Jim turned so he could lean his head against a uniformed thigh.

“So?”

Jim sipped, sighed, settled. “So, Starfleet wanted Spock and I to do a poxy team-building thing to ‘engender greater efficiency through communication and trust between the members of the command team’.” Kinda hard to do the air-quotes without spilling his drink, but he managed. Jim Kirk was just awesome that way. “You know, leading one another blind-folded through the corridors, mock survival exercises in the cargo bays, Couples’ Counselling for Command Teams, taking turns swooning and catching each other. Fucking bullshit.”

“First I’ve heard of it,” Bones said, fingers idly stroking through Jim’s hair. “You talk them out of it?”

“Spock did. Kinda. Submitted a twelve-page report on why this was Illogical and Inefficient and such, with attached counter-proposal. And Command went for it.”

“So now _you_ have to draw up the recruitment posters. _Nice_.”

“We’ve temporarily exchanged some of our more mundane command-type responsibilities. You know, kinda see how the other half lives. So Spock gets to do the making of _welcome aboard, chaps_ speeches to new crew, and the combating of homesickness with friendly reassurance and the provision of a strong, handsome shoulder to cry on. And I get to do the crew rosters, and all that fun performance-y, statistic-y stuff. And come up with the recruitment ads. And do the interview-over-the-comms stuff. And choose the new hires. Yay me.”

“Yay you, indeed. The tedium will probably do you some good, kid. God knows you get enough excitement most days.”

Jim smirked. “It’s not exactly tedious, the way I do it.”

Bones groaned, but Jim was fairly sure it was just for effect.

He reached for the padd he’d been working on, found it quite agreeable to review his efforts so far with Bones petting him like that. “Hey, can I say 'bitch'? I need a new yeoman, Chang’s leaving me, and I want someone who'll make sure I eat and sleep and tidy my room on a regular basis, you know? Someone who's not afraid to be mean to me even if I totally outrank her. Or him. Can I say 'rigid-but-adorable bitch' or something?”

“May I remind you that I am a doctor, not a copywriter?”

“Thanks, Bones. You know I love you most of all for your helpfulness.”

“Shut up and drink, brat.”

>   
> **YEOMAN/CLERICAL**
> 
>   
>  Are you a prissy but gorgeous young thing who can keep any man in line? Do you have great legs? Basic clerical skills? Ability to stage-manage a busy life? Can you focus on details like whether the captain has eaten in the last six hours while he’s worrying about hostile alien vessels with their enormous bristly gun clusters pointing this way? Can you lie convincingly to a guy’s very scary and authoritative mother who outranks you about him being in a very important meeting and unable to be disturbed? Are you prepared to commit to a posting for at least one year, to minimise disruption to ship-board routine? Then we want YOU as Captain’s Yeoman aboard the  USS Enterprise. No experience required. Apply Cpt. Kirk, Enterprise, under sorting code YETANOTHERYEOMAN.

At this point, Jim’s progress on the production-of-advertising front was halted by Bones’s desire for a salty chaser for his bourbon. Afterwards, he lay in post-orgasmic splendour (there really ought to be a mirror on the ceiling) on the naked mattress, listening to his lover’s breathing settle as the stresses of his day caught up with him and sleep came calling, and began mentally composing copy for the next item on his to-do list.

 

 

>   
> **MEDICAL — NURSING**
> 
> Are you a scary awesome nurse with top-notch qualifications and some experience as a supervisor? Are you cool in a crisis, bossy and no-nonsense when required, and able to build a good working rapport with even the grumpiest of mega-brilliant ship’s surgeons? The USS Enterprise requires a fantastic Head Nurse ASAP. Experience treating a wide range of humanoid and non-humanoid species a definite plus. Note that owing to exceptional circumstances, current Enterprise nursing staff are on average newly-qualified and very young; you will have no hardened veterans to call on, you’ll be very much the big cheese. But you thrive on responsibility, right? Successful applicant will be asked for his/her input into new nursing hires in the future. Please direct application packets to Cpt. Kirk, Enterprise, under sorting code FRIENEMYFORBONES.

*

Jim hid his fond smile behind a padd as he listened to the painfully polite disagreement taking place in front of him at the navigation console. Spock considered Chekov’s latest plotted course insufficiently exacting. Chekov maintained that he _could_ plot a course in as much detail as Spock desired, taking account of every known spatial phenomenon in the area, every instance where they might pass just close enough to a star or other large body for its gravity to nudge the ship a fraction of a millimetre off course, but he could only account for the knowns, not the unknowns, and Sulu was unlikely to follow his course precisely in any case because he enjoyed doing things on manual now and then. Spock actually frowned at this.

Sulu argued that there was little point having a skilled helmsman instead of, say, a ring-tailed lemur in a specially-made miniature uniform, if you were going to insist on navigational plans so meticulous that even the computer could follow them without trouble.

Spock claimed that the computer _should_ be able to get them anywhere they wished to go, provided only that a suitable course were laid in, and that this was the entire purpose of the very expensive and efficient automation system built into the bones of this spectacular modern marvel of a ship.

This little debate happened to be the most interesting thing that had happened all shift. Jim decided he’d smooth any ruffled feathers later, when Spock was out of the picture. In the meantime… He lowered his padd to a more comfortable position for data entry.

>   
> **SCIENCE/MEDICAL — RESEARCH**
> 
> Do you have a gigantic stick up your @$$ when it comes to laboratory precision? Do you believe rounding the stardate to three decimal places is woefully inaccurate? Do you think symbolic logic is what’s lacking in all those tedious, long-winded political debates? Do you distinguish between hard and soft sciences and quietly sneer at people who don’t? Do you have a basic grounding in all the main sciences, with impressively juicy qualifications in physics, chemistry, biology, and/or computer science? Do you have at least a year’s experience working in a shiny ultra-modern laboratory environment? Can you conduct important research with a minimum of supervision and praise?
> 
> Applications are sought for the position of Assistant to the Chief Science Officer aboard the USS Enterprise, a vessel presently engaged upon the first leg of its five-year mission of deep space exploration. Danger and weird new life-forms and space phenomena pretty much guaranteed. Don’t be fooled by the word ‘assistant’; this is a position of responsibility——no flakes, please. Apply Cpt. Kirk, Enterprise, with all relevant information about your awesome brainy science-y self. Application packets to be marked with sorting code “SPOCK’SBITCH”. 

>   
> **ADMINISTRATION/CLERICAL — PERSONNEL**
> 
> This ad sucks, doesn’t it? You know it, I know it. This isn’t my job, I’m not trained for it, and I don’t really give a rodent’s posterior for this whole SitVac posting deal. But you do, right? You want to sit in a nice cosy office on the Starfleet flagship and make sure we have the best darn crew in space, doncha? Applications to Cpt. Kirk, Enterprise, sorting code SAVEME.

***

The work only seemed to multiply. For every minute he’d spent writing the stupid job descriptions and employment come-ons for the Situations Vacant board, Jim seemed to have to spend _ten_ minutes reading cover letters, _twenty_ minutes scanning CVs (which were ludicrously padded, for the most part), and further time returning comm calls, conducting interviews, short-listing, and nattering with the officers who would be the new hires’ direct supervisors about just how much of a deal-breaker were little things like a record of tardiness or a history of wearing the mini-dress uniform without undergarments of any kind. It was eating into his off-shifts more and more, thus making it clear to Jim that either Spock was a fucking awesome multi-tasker who could literally get through far more work than humanly possible—or else he had too damn much on his plate and wasn’t getting any semblance of a personal life.

“Come to bed,” Bones said—growled, really, from the other room.

Jim checked the chrono on the desk and groaned. “Be there in a minute.”

“I’m timing ya. Fifty-five seconds, then I’m coming out there after you.”

The menace in his tone got through to Jim. He began packing up, switching the various padds (CV: Janice Rand; cover letter: Geoff M’Benga, M.D., DPhil; transcript from Starfleet Academy administrative division: Rhys Davies; message from Lieutenant Giotto: Need those new guys soon, boss) into sleep mode.

“Still enjoying this better than team-building exercises?” Bones asked, as Jim settled into his arms and the computer automatically dimmed the lights.

Jim snorted. “I’m having a darn sight more fun than Spock is, I can tell you.” He’d actually _seen_ the guy trying to fend off a clingy, sobbing Ensign Parks this morning. Spock had looked hilariously appalled.

Jim’s sympathy for Spock’s plight was such that he made sure to show up to hear Spock give the welcoming speech to the first cohort of new crew-members a week later. He brought popcorn. Spock glared every time Jim crunched. He had a feeling that their first joint task as a newly “built” command team would be to let Starfleet Command know just how much its ideas about the importance of team-building were appreciated.

***END***

  



End file.
